In an instant, she burned for him. His brightly painted face, his mismatched clothes, his trick lapel flower – oh, how she yearned to be squirted by that flower. She watched him as he walked, his enormous shoes flapping against the ground and honking with each step. He was masterful – commanding, even. She felt as if she was being pulled into his orbit, as if her soul was tracing a circle around him like the one formed by the hooped waist of his comically oversized trousers. How she longed to cradle that lopsided face in her hands, to kiss that shining red nose.

She hurriedly stuffed philosophical treatises into her desk and locked the lid with trembling hands. Her article on the dichotomy of free will would have to wait – she had no choice now but to run away and join the circus.